So it’s October. An early season of mists and mellow fruit/ful/less/ness. The vines are changing colour under our eyes. Suddenly we’re surrounded by fields of gold, that stretch in a brilliant glow from here to the infinity of mountains covered in lavish lashings of snow. The temperature ricochets from top-summer heat to mid-winter cold, and then back up again. It rains and then it shines. The vineyard has sighed, slumped its shoulders, and decided to call it a day. For the time being, that is.
We try to resist the temptation to do the same.
And thankfully, we’re shaken out of our post-harvest torpor, where we were on the point of sliding into a golden glow of apathy all of our own, by a lovely article written by the foreign Languedoc wine expert, Rosemary George MW in her blog Taste Languedoc. Her latest book (The Wines of Languedoc) is a real ‘must’ for anyone who wants to know more, in fact probably everything there is to know, about the region’s vineyards.
There’s nothing like a bit of praise to get you up on your feet and going again.
Blind taste the Rives-Blanques Chenin Blanc late harvest, Lagremas d’Aur against a top Bonnezeau or Coteaux du Layon, she suggests. Would we ever have suggested that, brazenly, out in the open, so unashamedly?
We celebrate by sharing a bottle of Lagremas d’Aur between four of us and an apple and almond cake.
And our Mauzac, Occitania, is also “absolutely delicious” Rosemary George continues, wondering why more people don’t make a still Limoux from this heritage grape variety. Yes, we – or more specifically, I – think it’s delicious too, but we (not even I) normally say it quite so boldly either.
But it certainly does bring Spring back to our step.
Tuesday October 13
Most of the juice is still fermenting into wine. It is a most wonderful thing to walk into the cellars, hear the sound, smell the smell, be lulled and enveloped by the heavy portent that hangs in the air.
Wednesday October 21
But right next door, in the warehouse, there’s an air of suspended disbelief hanging thickly over Sandra and her companion Loïc, as they laboriously take over 20,000 bottles out of their pallets, then out of their cartons, stick labels on each and every bottle, by hand, then repeat the whole process backwards: bottles go back into their cartons, they’re taped back up, then back on the pallet, plastic wrapped, re-sealed … and on to the next. And so forth. And so on.
And so forth.
Our belief is much less suspended than theirs. We thought we’d seen it all before, but no: someone, whomever that may be, forgot to check the Odyssée labels when they arrived from the printer. Someone else, whomever that may be, forgot to check the labels at the bottling line. And that is how some 24000 bottles of our top Chardonnay were seamlessly labelled with labels bearing the name of one of our US importers, brandishing the US Health Warning. Said importer did not avail himself of this unique opportunity to stock up on enough Odyssée to float the ship upon which Ulysses sailed his own Odyssey, and no one else seemed to want to embark on such a voyage with someone else’s name on his wine.
And to think we’d thought we’d seen it all.
Wednesday 28 October
And no, indeed, we haven’t seen even the beginning of it all. Tonight President Macron addresses the nation again. We’re going back into Lockdown, for at least a month. He lists the reasons in intelligible, sensible sentences. We gather around the tiny TV in the kitchen as if we’re a 1930’s family wired into the wireless. We’re all there, from almost-4-month-old Maia to her 70+ year-old grandfather.
There’s a deep feeling of depression, a coup de mou, extreme exhaustion from the situation as it is, and of all the obstacles in the way of what it should be.
And little did we know that tomorrow there would be another terrorist attack in Nice.
Saturday October 30
On cue, the mighty oak, Quercus Ilex, the one we planted almost exactly a year ago on the crest of a hill at the top of a vineyard, a landmark and shady resting place for two and four-footed and winged creatures for ever and ever, went and died on us. Just like that. Almost overnight.
It was the 433rd tree we planted last year. Fortunately the rest are doing fine.
…/to be continued next month